Posts Tagged ‘north yorkshire’

Daffodils sportive is a Velo29 event that starts in Thirsk. It usually takes place in March, when the daffodils are out, but has been delayed for the past two years. Bogdan and I did the short route in October and decided to come back this May for the medium route.

Bogdan was made significant gains over the winter and his FTP is now much higher than mine. This was evident on the climbs that he powered up while staying in the saddle. I was worried I would be holding him back (and maybe I was!) but we got around without issue and my endurance came in helpful towards the end of the ride as I was still feeling pretty good.

I say “without issue” but I did lose a cleat bolt. This has happened a few times so it is definitely not me failing to tighten it correctly as I checked it after each incident. I had the mechanic tighten it at one of the feed stops and luckily it held in place for the rest of the ride.

We are clearly faster. The 2021 event was 65 km with 863 metres of climbing and we averaged 23.7 kph. The medium route was 120 km with 1,682 of climbing, so roughly double both, and we averaged 24.6 kph (0.9 kph faster). My average power was 18 watts higher while my average heart rate was 13 bpm lower, suggesting my fitness has improved.

We were very lucky with the weather. It was predicted to be wet and I came in full rain gear. But barely a drop fell the whole time. We were able to sit down on the grass with our sausage in a bun at the end and relax. And yet, by the time we got back on the motorway to go home, I had to slow down to 45 mph because visibility was so poor due to the heavy rain. Perfect timing!

Sportives are back! Last week, Bogdan and I completed the Daffodils sportive that starts from Thirsk. It had everyone you would want from Yorkshire: beautiful views, rolling hills, and wide, quiet roads.

It was raining when I woke up and raining the whole way through the sportive. I don’t have any clear glasses so I look a bit miserable in the photos but it is mostly because I was trying to keep the rain out of my eyes: once we were cycling I was enjoying it.

My maximum speed was 57.8 kph coming down one of the hills. Later that day, Filippo Ganna won the prologue (the opening stage time trial) of the Giro d’Italia with an average speed of 58.8 kph.

I hate cold, wet feet so I went full winter gear: winter socks, Mavic winter boots and my Spatz extra-thick overshoes. I did get a little bit of water or sweat in there but they felt warm and dry for the whole event.

Everything took place outside. You had to book your start time down to the minute. This worked better than the long queues at other events although there may have been fewer participants. They had loads of portapotties at the HQ (and I mostly rate events based on their toilet availability) so that was great, and we got a sausage in a bun at the end.

As the cycling world championships were just up the road in Harrogate, we hopped on the train to go watch the elite men’s time trial.

Time trials are quite good for spectators because they release the riders at one-minute intervals. In contrast, in standard road races, the peloton rides together, so you have to get there in plenty of time, they all come through at once and then they are gone.

I’m doing this new thing where I try to enjoy my life, rather than create a photographic record of it, which meant I was shotting on a little GoPro, rather than my massive DSLR and f2.8 superlens. The pictures were predictably mediocre, but it taught me to use burst mode on the GoPro.

Nidderdale is a fun triathlon. Pool-based, surprisingly flat for a Nidderdale and offering the best finishers t-shirt of any race is have done, it is a great way to finish the season.

Last year it was my ninth and final. This year it was a warm-up for my two remaining races. The weather was much better this year. It was the only race I dragged Elina and Venla did last year and it rained the whole day. Not much sun this year either but at least it was dry.

The swim

Due to poor timing on my part, I only arrived at the poolside two minutes before I was due to start and was almost immediately in the water. I took the first half easy as I lazily drafted another swimmer before speeding up for the second half.

The bike

The bike course is rolling, but the rolls are small enough that you can spend most of the time on your aero bars. Only one Pearson overtook me, and he cruised past on his hoods even while I was aero.

On the way back, I ended up caught behind a traffic jam of cars trying to get over a narrow bridge. My descending was much faster thanks to the dry roads, though, and no chain drop in the final corner this year, either.

The run

Nothing much to report here. I did not push too hard as my endless cold was still dragging on.

The result

I finished with a time of:

1:19:42

That is around five and a half minutes faster than last year. Position splits were 112th (swim), 36th (T1), 39th (bike), 87th (T2), 51st (run) out of 170. That was good enough for 53rd place.

My splits were:

My faster swim time is really T1 time: last year it was raining so many of us put our shoes on after leaving the pool but before crossing the timing mat.

Nestled in the far side of the small town of Pateley Bridge is a school and leisure centre. Which, every September, play host to the Nidderdale sprint triathlon. As it is such a beautiful area, I decided it was worth making the effort to race there.

It’s been a long season: this would be my ninth triathlon, making a total of four sprints, four standards and one middle distance, plus a bunch of Go Tris are duathlons. And, if I had known I was doing my first middle distance race the week before, I would have thought twice. But, as I signed up for this one long before, I decided it would make a nice cooldown event to finish to the year.

We decided to make it a family day out. It’s been baking-hot sun for pretty much every race I have done so far. But the first race that Elina and Venla joined me for looked like this…

Still, if we thought we had it bad, the leisure centre staff had to clean all of the grass and mud up after we had gone.

The swim

The swim was 400 metres. This would normally be 16 lengths but the Nidderdale pool is only 20 metres long, making it 20. We were set off at regular intervals and I was just starting a length when the guy behind me set off at pace. He tagged me to get past on his return length.

The only problem was that he couldn’t keep the pace up. Within a few lengths he was struggling and I had caught him. As I only had two lengths left I couldn’t be bothered to tag him back, but the woman behind me did. Let this be a lesson to us all: pace yourself at the start or you’ll find it rather embarrassing when everyone catches you up again.

The bike

Given where Pateley Bridge is, the bike course was surprisingly flat. A few rolling hills and a little climb at the end, but mostly it followed the road along the side of the reservoir, making for beautiful viewing.

It has been raining all day, it was still raining and the roads were covered in surface water. In my mind, that was a good excuse to descent the hills at a sensible pace. Other athletes felt differently though and came screaming down the hills. So, I lost about four places there, despite being a much stronger climber. Towards the end, I took a few places of my own.

Unfortunately, just before the end, my chain dropped and I had to unclip, climb off and put it back on. I got back on the bike and rounded the corner to see I was at the end of the bike leg: almost close enough to just run it in.

My shoes were soaked by the end from all the surface spray. Maybe I should have worn my tri shoes with the holes in the bottom to drain water.

The run

I felt good on the run. Nobody passed me and I overtook plenty. One marshall even commented about how fast I had come back, which is not unusual for me because my swim and bike times mean I am started with the slower athletes, but once I hit the run I am in my element.

The results

I was 74th overall, out of a field of 167. My total time was:

1:26:23

The winner was 1:02:15. My splits were 12:42 for the swim, 2:02 for T1, 46:23 for the bike, 2:08 for T2 and 23:07 for the run. All of that is pretty good, especially for a race where I was taking it easy.

12:42 for the swim doesn’t really represent my actual time as you come out of the pool and into the sports hall, where you can put your shoes on, before crossing the timing matt and going into transition. So my swim time was really sub-10.

The bike time would have been a bit faster if I hadn’t dropped my chain and my 5km PB race time is 22:39, so to be only 30 seconds behind that feels like a great result.

The aftermath

The season is over and I never have to ride my bike again.

I probably will, of course. But I’m looking forward to taking a break from training and being a bit more flexible in what I do and when I do it. And, of course, having done nine races, a bunch of Go Tris and half a dozen sportives, too, if I do continue it would now be entirely justifiable to do so on a new, fancier bike.

But for now I’m looking forward to sitting on the sofa all winter and getting fat.

I headed up to York last week to the North Yorkshire Humanist Group’s meeting as they had a talk on the role of faith based representatives in nursing. The talk was interesting and proved some great debate afterward. It’s interesting to see the variance of opinions on the subject, though most humanists seem overall in favour of the idea of humanist chaplaincy.

After the meeting we headed to a local pub which got a very impressive attendance – probably over 50% of people who went to the meeting joined us at the pub, a retention rate which I’m sure West Yorkshire would love to emulate.

On Saturday night I attended the annual BBQ of the North Yorkshire Humanist Society (so don’t get confused – it wasn’t a BBQ where we cooked North Yorkshire Humanists 😉 ).

The BBQ itself was good although I feel I was mis-sold when told it was in York as it was in a village just outside named Haxby – not a problem when you’re coming from York but on the far side when driving up from Leeds.

It was interesting to see the demographics in North Yorkshire, the age range is much better than West Yorkshire although this could have been disorted by the fact it was a bit more of a social event than a regular meeting.

They seem an active enough society though, they hold 11 meetings a year (just missing out August) which is more frequent than a lot of societies which take extensive summer breaks and they seem to have quite a bit of committee rotation going on.